Margaret Thatcher

England to sell eight times more council homes than it built last year, report finds

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/20/england-to-sell-eight-times-the-council-homes-it-built-last-year-report-finds

London’s Trellick Tower. The Common Wealth report urged the state to buy back and restore homes sold off under right to buy. Photograph: Chris Morphet/Getty

Depletion of social housing stock spurs calls for councils to have first refusal to buy ex-council homes entering market

England will sell off more than eight times as many council homes in 2025-26 as were constructed the previous year, research has found.

Right to buy is depleting council housing stock more quickly than public housing can be replaced, forcing people to spend more money on private market rents and obtain less secure tenancies, a report from the thinktank Common Wealth finds.

Its analysis of government data in England found that 38,170 social homes and 2,850 council homes were constructed by the government in 2023-24. In 2024-25, 2,260 council homes were built. There were 13,966 sell-offs of council houses through right to buy in 2023-24 and 8,656 in 2024-25. An analysis in the i Paper estimated that 18,500 council homes will be sold off in 2025-26 – more than eight times more than the number built in 2024-25.

The report concludes that if the government wants to increase the supply of social rental housing quickly, it must invest in buying back and restoring homes sold off under right to buy, alongside more council housebuilding.

Adam Peggs, the report’s author, said: “We need to pull every effective lever we can find to expand public housing. Council housing gave people secure, low-cost homes in the past. With the right framework, it can give people high-quality, genuinely affordable homes, with real democratic voice in the future too. But we need to build the political will to make it happen.

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Continue ReadingEngland to sell eight times more council homes than it built last year, report finds

Right to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/03/right-to-buy-england-fuelled-housing-crisis-cost-taxpayers-common-weath-report

Many ex-council homes are now rented privately to tenants on housing benefit that costs taxpayers £20bn a year. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Guardian

Common Wealth report calls discounted sales of council homes one of the ‘largest giveaways in UK history’

Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme has cost UK taxpayers almost £200bn, according to a report into the policy’s contribution to Britain’s housing crisis.

In its report into the sale of millions of council homes to their tenants at steep discounts since 1980, the Common Wealth thinktank said the policy had fuelled vast shortages in social housing and turbocharged inequality.

Describing it as one of the “largest giveaways in UK history”, it said the sale of 1.9m council homes in England had contributed to a situation where one in six private tenants in England now rents a former local authority home.

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Calculating the “opportunity cost” of the sales, Common Wealth said the former council homes were now worth an estimated £430bn after taking account of inflation and the surge in property prices since 1980.

Of this sum, the thinktank said £194bn represented the value that was effectively given away when the homes were sold at a discount. Between the years 1980-81 and 2023-24, the discount averaged 43% on the prevailing market price.

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See the original article at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/03/right-to-buy-england-fuelled-housing-crisis-cost-taxpayers-common-weath-report

Continue ReadingRight to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’